The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-04-06

cent. of the anti prohibition vote in Detroit
ond very large per cent of the anti-prohibi-
tion vote in indianapolis is and would be of
men as deeply earnest and sincere in their OPP
position to the evils resulting from the public
traffic in liquors as any could be who
most loudly cry for a prohibition amendment
But these men in Detroit and these men in
Indianapolis think they know as we'll as
they know that the night follows day. or day
follows night, that to put prohibition into
the State Constitution of Michigan means
practically free whisky and unlimited deviltry
in Detroit, just as it would mean, if enacted
in Indiana a riot of the unlimited and un-
bridled liquor power in Indianapolis and in
other of the principal cities and towns of the
State This large per cent. of people, who
expressed themselves in Michigan, and who
express themselves elsewhere, do not believe
either in the justice the propriety of a
rural population voting free whisky upon
those who happen to live in cities in order to
measure is practically unnecessary mere
sentimental enactment In Indiana, under
the present liquor mems license law, there
are many places where there is not public
saloon. How would these be benefited by the
passage of a prohibtory law, the effect of
which, many people believe, would be to give
Ill t. L. III o,,l osf 4Lo
iniquities of free whisky, such as the people
enjoyed ~ in Ohio under an amendment
voted into the Constitution thirty years ago
by Temperance" men?
On the other hand, while the prohibition
amendment is defeated in Michigan, the very
large affirmative vote it received, taken with
the increasing vote everywhere in favor of re-
striction under such laws as the Dow law in
Ohio and the Harper law in Illinois, the vote in
the Indiana House of Representatives for the
temperance bill, the passage of the Crosby
bill by the New York Legislature, and the ad-
vancement of temperance by local laws in
so many of the Southern States, must be
accepted by all intelligent people, even by
liquor men who have common sense, as dis
tinct and unmistakable determination of the
sovereign people that the public saloon must
be curtailed; that its power in politics must
end that liquor dealers and liquor sellers must
cease to attempt the domination of legislation
and of society; that they must rigidly observe
the laws made for the restraint of their traffic,
and that they must be content to remain I'M
der the ban the law and civilized society have
placed upon their trade from time immemo-
rial. There is no fact palmer in contempora-
neous political history than this, and if liquor
dealers fail to recognize it they are simply
placing themselves and their business beneath
the upper and neither millstones that will
grind them to powder
Not only from Michigan but from all Sec
tons of the country the election figures and
legislative movements indicate the strength
and the wisdom of the position assumed by
upon the question of liquor legislation. Each
day since the passage of the resolution has
strengthened the principle upon which it was
based. The ideas of higher taxation and of
local control are the ones upon which this
troublous problem can be best solved, and
which, put into laws, backed by just and
| tolerant public sentiment, will eliminate from
| general politics an element which should never
| have obtruded into it, and secure for all COM
| munities that measure of restraint and relief
which experience and good conscience shall
| teach them is best and most effective.